Chapter 2 - THE RED VELVET BOX
The silence in the foyer was deafening. The only sound was Ethan’s ragged, hiccuping breaths against Lily’s neck.
Serena lunged toward the staircase, her veneer shattering entirely. “Martha, you senile old bitch! Shut your filthy mouth!”
Victor didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. He moved with the frightening speed of a trained combat veteran, stepping directly into Serena’s path. When she tried to shove past him, he caught her by the upper arm with a grip that made her gasp in pain.
“If you take one more step toward that woman,” Victor whispered, his eyes burning with a terrifying darkness, “I won’t wait for the police.”
“Victor, she’s lying! They’re all conspiring against me!” Serena screeched, thrashing against his grip. “They want to destroy our family! Lily wants you for your money, can’t you see that?!”
Victor shoved her back onto the velvet sofa. “Sit down. Don’t move.”
He turned to Lily. His expression softened by a fraction, though the fury under his skin was boiling. He crouched down to her level, gently extending his large hands.
“Lily. Let me take him.”
Lily flinched instinctively, hugging the boy closer before she realized who it was. She looked up into Victor’s stern, tortured face and nodded, carefully passing the toddler into his father’s arms.
As soon as Ethan felt his father’s solid chest, the baby buried his face into Victor’s neck, whimpering pitifully. Victor cradled Ethan’s injured arm with delicate precision, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped.
“Dr. Hayes is already on his way,” Victor said quietly to Lily. “You’re bleeding from your forehead.”
“I’m fine, Mr. Blackwood,” Lily croaked, wiping the back of her hand across her hairline, coming away with smear of red. “Just… please protect Ethan.”
Victor turned back to Martha, who had made her way down the sweeping steps, leaning heavily on the gilded banister. In her trembling hands, she carried a heavy, antique mahogany lockbox wrapped in a child’s silk blanket.
“What is that, Martha?” Victor demanded.
Martha glared at Serena with undisguised hatred. “For the last three months, whenever you were out of town on corporate business, Miss Serena stayed here. She told the staff she was bonding with Ethan. But she locked the nursery doors from the inside.”
“Martha!” Serena screamed, jumping off the couch. “I will have you ruined! I will take everything your family owns!”
Victor didn’t look at Serena. “Keep talking, Martha.”
“Three weeks ago, I found Ethan crying in the dark pantry,” Martha said, her voice shaking with rage. “She locked him in there for four hours because he spilled milk on her shoes. When I threatened to call you, she told me my grandson’s medical trust fund—the one your company sponsors—would be terminated within an hour. She said her father sits on the hospital board and would pull the plug on his chemotherapy.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed into slits. “She threatened a seven-year-old with cancer?”
“Yes, sir,” Martha wept. “I was terrified. But I started documenting everything. I took pictures. And yesterday, I found where she hid the key to the nursery safe.”
Martha handed the mahogany box to Victor. It was unlocked.
Victor adjusted Ethan in his left arm and flipped open the wooden lid with his right.
Inside the box were dozens of small, amber prescription bottles, a stack of unmarked cash, and a thick manila folder labeled with the crest of the city’s most prestigious private hospital: St. Jude’s Memorial Pediatric Ward.
Victor pulled out the top prescription bottle. The label read: Liquid Clonazepam – High Dosage Pediatric Dropper.
Victor’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked at Ethan’s half-glazed eyes, then down at the bottle.
“She’s been drugging my son,” Victor said, the words barely a breath, but loaded with absolute slaughter.
“No! That’s a lie! That’s prescription medication for his colic!” Serena yelled, scrambling backward toward the grand front entrance. “His doctor gave it to me!”
Victor flipped open the manila folder. On the first page was an autopsy report dated fourteen months ago.
The name at the top of the deceased record was: Claire Blackwood.
Victor’s late wife.
May you like
The woman who had supposedly died of sudden postpartum heart failure forty-eight hours after giving birth to Ethan.
And clipped to the bottom of the coroner’s report was a handwritten personal receipt for two million dollars, signed by the Chief of Toxicology at St. Jude’s, made out directly to: Serena Vance.
